It is an honor to speak about Csaba, a man whom I came to admire as a friend, colleague and mentor. He exemplified all of the qualities of those who make up great academic institutions like Yale. And, I think because of the breadth of his interests, including especially his love of history and of language, he thrived in this environment. Csaba was a wonderfully complex person who possessed a great intellect a wonderful sense of humor and a warm heart. He seemed to devote himself equally to highly technical discussions about the latest developments and "sharp peaks" (or the lack thereof) in the laboratory on one hand and to inquiries about the health of the cleaning staff as they passed through the lab on the other. Csaba was very much a “people person.” One personal experience I can relate happened in the early nineties at a NATO "Advanced Study Institute" conference in Italy on chromatographic theory where Csaba was naturally delivering one of the key lectures (on hydrophobic interaction chromatography of proteins, I believe). I had met him briefly a few times several years before at Genentech, where he was a valued consultant and advisor to the many groups involved in various aspects of bioseparations. Back in Italy, notwithstanding our rather tenuous acquaintance at that time, he greeted me like an old friend. It made me feel good and, after getting to know him better over subsequent years, I realized that he had that effect on a lot of people. Everyone knows that Csaba was a true scientific pioneer, having made important contributions in many different areas, including in the one for which he is best known, high performance liquid chromatography. As with other great scientists, he was also a risk-taker, working in sometimes unpopular (at least when he started working in them) areas. When I joined his lab several years ago, he was quite willing to venture into the world of proteomics, an area in which both of agreed that a great need existed for improved separation techniques, but in which neither of us had any direct experience. Csaba’s immense knowledge and know-how in the area of bioseparations, of course, proved key assets in the development of new technologies that we are now applying to the study of breast cancer cells and tissues. And we were helped out in no small way by the gift of a mass spectrometer arranged by our good friend Bill Hancock. But this story is by no means an unusual one in the history of Csaba’s efforts. A popular description applied to many research efforts today is “interdisciplinary”. Csaba did interdisciplinary long before it became a popular concept. Along the way over the last few years, we again renewed Csaba’s NIH grant which retained the “humble” (as he referred to it in his letter to the NIH) title of “Liquid Chromatography of Biological Substances.” This “humble” grant is now in its 30th consecutive year of funding through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and has served (and continues to serve) as a vehicle for the training of several generations of students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists from all over the world who all mourn his loss and carry on his remarkable scientific legacy. Indeed we all will miss him. |